For the Love & Catharsis of a Character

[Siteya]

I have spent a lot of time thinking about PS and roleplay, and why I love it so much and want to take part in this world. I have searched high and low online for other outlets to roleplay and create stories and I find myself back here. Why? because Planeshift is unique, there is really no other opportunity like it elsewhere. This is a place I can do all of the above and take part in an ongoing discussions about roleplay, about the stories and about the development of this unique environment.

For me when it comes down to it, at the core of my true love for PS is, the on going relationship I have with my characters. How I get to laugh and cry with them, love and hate them, learn from them, grow with them, abuse them, use them, and tell stories through them in a community of other people doing the same...

I found this video today and it kinda hit me in my gut, I wanted to share it here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTClKpM-HAU

I look forward to hearing responses after watching the video. We spend so much time playing our characters, I would love to start a philosophical discussion on what that dynamic is for other players.

[cdmoreland]

I don't have a real life!

[Rigwyn]

Excellent.

I remember early on when I was first learning how to roleplay here in ps, My character took on a job to rescue an elf who was being held hostage in the Laanx temple. (Garris was playing the kidnapper, but I didn't know that at the time. Good times.)

I remember sitting on the edge of my seat and leaning into the screen. My feet were sweating and heart was pounding as if my body was physically preparing for a fight. When the event was over, I sat up. It was dark in my house by then - those few hours had gone by in an instant. I was alarmed at how I had reacted to that situation and how immersed I was. It was as if it was real, though I knew well that it was just fiction.

Experiences like this help to make you aware of how much of reality actually happens inside your head, and not outside of it. Therefore, imagination and reality share a lot of similar ground.

* They both take place in the mind.
* The body reacts to both
* Memories are formed
* Lessons can be learned
* Internal conflicts can become more clear, or can be dealt with in a safe way.

From here, its quite natural to ask questions about existence and reality. The "brain in a vat" problem comes to mind, specifically.

[Demagul Riwe]

RPing as Demagul is sort of therapeutic for me. Actually, a lot of his positive traits are aspects that's I'm trying so hard to obtain in reality, like his total dedication to his passion, and his secret ability to hide his true feelings when he really wants to (in reality I just end up making a ton of noise until I get what I think is right). Sometimes I find myself staying up until 1 in the morning on Planeshift just because it's so immersive for me, and it's surprising how good my mood is the next day. This is actually my first RP, but sometimes I forget that I survived almost 15 years before I discovered it, and it's pretty shocking when I do.

[Garris Shrike]

Well I'll be damned. Didn't know that one of my various little RPs caught up baby Rigwyn in the first stages! Kinda cool to hear.

Also, I'm glad that it was a fun experience for you, man. If you had fun, then my job was done.

I can remember several times where I experienced such a catharsis myself, and yes, Siteya, it is why you and I and others continue to come to the game.

Being a part of the "Slavers" RP comes to mind.

My first child (as Garris) being killed in a revenge killing, and the series of events unfolding before and after. Granted I deserved that one...

Employing and wielding chaos with Duraza and his characters...

The showdown at Camp Banished before there was a guildhouse there...

Hundreds of petty thefts along the road to Ojaveda before Gugrontid came along, BD before Gugrontid came along, and finally the advent of pterosaurs and the restrictions/new abilities they brought.

The mad love making. The crazy tavern rps. The drunken, emotional highs and lows.

Creating some of the original 'thoughts on how to RP' documents, gathering the information, and laying the groundwork stages. Working with new characters and blending them to old. Some of those characters are old, now, and gone. Wow.

What a ride, PlaneShift. What a ride.

[Aramara Meibi]

i know that i miss it.

[Eonwind]

I think Siteya is right, PS is a strange nice in the mmorpg landscape, and I think it was the reason I wanted to improve it in the first place and joined the team later on. I was not new to RPing when I first begun moving my char's feet but in a few hours I felt it was incredibly similar to other RPing experiences I had, and in a good way! I didn't know the immersion could be so great for an online game... even when I wanted to kill my char...

[Masked]

PS is good because you can RP and also RP-lite, and gain enjoyment either way.

[Duec2]

I have played alot of different hard core RP games/servers all of which have gotten taken over by very few people due to those people taking controll of all or most of the factions/guilds/organizations.  They take them over by making several differenc charactors and have each one rise to leadership in different factions/guilds/organizations.  Than they make the narrative.  Crafting is worthless in these games.

I have, also, played quite a few RP-lite games all of which have little to no controll by players in the game and crafting has some value but drop/looted items are much much stronger at advanced levels.  You play the games narrative only.

Here we have a staff of gm's and dev's that generally listen to us.  We have a strong crafting system that drives us to have a player driven economic system.  We can play out RP at the level we want [but we are not bound by hard core RP rules, no chance of having few players taking over the game]. 

How this game is played, allows for our players to enjoy a level of freedom that other games do not give their players.

Can things improve, of course, however they are trending in the right direction and we see people that played before coming back to see what is going on.  Some of which are playing again at some level or another.